TV ratings for Texas A&M – Alabama highest in 23 years

The broadcast of No. 1 Alabama at No. 6 Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon earned the highest ratings for a regular season college football game on CBS in 23 years, the network announced on Sunday.

The much-anticipated matchup won by the Tide, 49-42, earned an overnight household rating of 9.0 and a share of 21. It was the highest rating for an afternoon regular-season college football game since the Miami-Notre Dame game earned a 10.1 on Oct. 20, 1990.

The ratings peaked around 7 p.m. ET according to the network, which was right about when Johnny Manziel was leading the Aggies on a fourth quarter comeback.

Ratings represent the percentage of all homes with televisions tuned to a program. Shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time. Overnight ratings measure the country’s largest markets.

Manziel and the offense had a great performance, too bad the defense choked.

jimbo75025 says:Sep 15, 2013 7:55 PM

ttalarico says:
Sep 15, 2013 7:38 PM
Of course it was a Notre Dame game that was higher!
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Yes, almost a quarter of a century ago (possibly the last time ND was truly relevant). If I remember correctly at that period of time, we were lucky if there were three games being televised at the same time unlike today when every game everywhere is televised on one of 250+ channels.

lastdukestreetking says:Sep 15, 2013 9:38 PM

Actually it was a Miami game.

Deb says:Sep 15, 2013 9:42 PM

Just goes to show people want to see good matchups–even if they’re all-SEC matchups 😉

ndnut says:Sep 15, 2013 9:56 PM

The ratings were almost as high as Johnny Football gets on non-gamedays. I kid, I kid.

ndnut says:Sep 15, 2013 9:56 PM

But seriously…

canetic says:Sep 15, 2013 11:10 PM

A lot of people watched a lot of terrible defense on both sides. And yet Alabama is still #1.

Jimbo says: Yes, almost a quarter of a century ago (possibly the last time ND was truly relevant). If I remember correctly at that period of time, we were lucky if there were three games being televised at the same time unlike today when every game everywhere is televised on one of 250+ channels.

Hey Jimbo, did you not know that the ND vs Michigan game this year set the all time NCAA FB attendance record? Plus ND holds attendance records at many other stadiums across the country. How’s that for relevant?

primetime0552 says:Sep 16, 2013 1:04 AM

Being popular and being relevant are two completely different things…..

Michigan holds the record, not ND, since it is their facility. Using your logic, you could correctly say that “Hey!, we were in the National Championship game last January!” Never mind the fact that you got your ass handed to you.

Relevant is Michigan beating ND like Alabama did to you in the National Championship game, they were both losses. Yet you want to crow about having attendance records, fine. Most teams want victories, not stats.

I thought the game was MASSIVELY over hyped. It was a 1 vs 6 matchup when we had a 4 v 5 matchup already this year that didn’t quite go under the radar, but received nowhere near the hype of this game.

All that said, the game delivered. A&M won the 1st and 4th qtrs but got destroyed in the middle 2.

Play of the game was Sunseri’s pick 6
Turning point of the game was Manziels INT in the endzone.
Player of the game: I’m giving McCarron here a slight edge since they won, but I really think it’s Mike Evans. He was nearly undefendable and shredded the unit that Saban coaches himself.

ND won’t be relevent till they are consistent and, well, show up all season long, and play a conference championship. No one, even ND fans, can deny they were GIVEN games by opponents last year (re: Stanford and USC), and failed to even show up for the NCG.

And, just to clarify, MICHIGAN had the attendance record, not Notre Dame. Doubtful that ND can fit over 100k fans into their pitiful stadium. Not to mention, there’s a lot of other schools that could have helped Michigan do this other than ND.

Defend ND all you want, but they haven’t been relevent since Lou Holtz.

canetic:
I don’t think it was necessarily terrible defenses on both sides. TAMU has a tough offense, and Mike Evans is a beast. Alabama’s offensive line obviously got the crap drilled out of them after that poor showing against VATech.

I’ll agree that Alabama’s defense is not what it was last year, but both defenses this weekend looked the part of a NCG team.

To be completely honest…. the Aggies still have a realistic shot at the SECCG. It does require that LSU beat Bama and A&M beat LSU but is fairly feasible.

In that situation all 3 would have the same record and each beaten one of the others. Would come down to BCS rank at the time, and in this scenario LSU would be undefeated with a win over Bama under their belt and A&M would have to beat LSU in the second to last game of the season which fair or not would probably give them the highest ranking of the 3 at the end of the season.